three pages from 1964
Brown envelope from the Bundesarchiv. Only five months. I opened it standing in the hallway, next to Frau Pohl, who was pinning a notice about the next tenants' meeting to the board.
Three photocopied pages. A cover letter explaining that names of third parties have been redacted under the law. And then a memo, typed on a GDR typewriter, dated 14. Oktober 1964. From some department with a number for a name to another department with a number for a name. I've read it maybe thirty times. Rough translation of the important part:
Concerning: printed matter "Tables of Uniformly Distributed Random Numbers, Vol. II" (Akademie-Fachverlag).
The print run (800 copies) is to be secured in full and destroyed under supervision. Reason: partial identity of the material with series ██████ in operational use.
The Akademie is to be informed that the withdrawal is due to quality defects. Comrade Dr. ██████ has been informed and has agreed.
Deposit copies already delivered (Deutsche Bücherei Leipzig) are to be retrieved.
"Partial identity of the material with series ███ in operational use."
I'm not a historian, but I know what "operational" meant in that language. Some of those "random" digits were already being used for something. Something secret. And printing them in a book for anyone to buy would have been a problem.
"Quality defects." The numbers weren't random enough.
That's what she told me on the phone. The official excuse from 1964, word for word, fifty-eight years later.